The Theoretical Challenges of Hijab in Post-Revolution Iran: An Analysis of the Current Approaches to Hijab and Chastity

Abstract

Hijab and covering are a significant concern in all religions and cultures, whether considered as a natural-biological item for protecting the body or as a cultural value representing mental and cognitive beliefs or local and doctrinal traditions or a semiotic and symbolic issue. Thus, the present study used a descriptive-analytical method to analyze the scholars’ speeches to obtain the existing approaches to hijab and chastity in post-revolution Iran. The main approaches to hijab are as follows: traditional, explanatory, religious intellectual and feminist. The analyses showed that the feminist approach, being based on isolation and choice, not only criticizes the dominant perspective, but also denies the religious and conventional limits on hijab. The religious intellectual approach is a reductionist one hijab and considers it as a minimal option, denying any relation between hijab and chastity, and considering it a subject free of moral, juridical and governmental requirements. The traditional approach would not answer the women’s needs, in view of the global evolutions and an increase in women’s social participation. Finally, the explanatory approach not only emphasizes the protection of public hijab and chastity in the society, but also considers world’s transitions regarding women’s issues in order to maintain the hijab policy in Iran far from the challenges aroused from the rival perspectives and insists on religious reasoning about hijab in public.

Keywords

• hijab
• chastity
• explanatory approach
• feminist approach
• religious intellectual approach
• traditional approach